Born in England, Elizabeth Blackwell’s family moved to the United States in 1832 when she was 11. Six years later, the family had a run of bad luck and Elizabeth, her mother and sister were forced to open a school to provide income. In 1847, she was accepted to Genevea Medical College in New York, voted in unanimously by the all-male student body. She graduated in 1849, becoming the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. She’s also the first woman on the UK Medical Register.

In the 1860s, she created the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary, the first medical school for women in the United States. She returned to England at the end of her life, where she continued to teach at the London School of Medicine for Women.